Theatre 20, the new collective of Canadian musical theatre artists, doesn’t even officially launch until Jan. 20, but already it has put together an impressive array of talent for its first project.

The Star has learned that a 15-woman cast headed by Louise Pitre, Charlotte Moore, Lisa Horner, Carly Street, Tracy Michailidis, Susan Henley and Paula Wolfson will be appearing in the workshop of Sisters, the world premiere of the English-language version of the hit Québécois musical Belles-Soeurs, with book and lyrics by René Richard Cyr and music by Daniel Bélanger, based on the original play Les Belles-soeurs by Michel Tremblay.

A sellout smash in Montreal since opening in April to rave reviews, Belles-Soeurs will be touring Quebec for the next two years, and it’s a rare theatrical coup for an English-language version to be getting off the ground so quickly.

The Montreal-based company, Copa de Oro, is producing the workshop, with Theatre 20 providing administrative assistance. Award-winning translator Linda Gaboriau will be providing the English book and lyrics, while Cyr will be directing, as he did in Montreal. Musical direction for Toronto will be provided by Dave Meyers.

The workshop will take place from Jan. 13 through 25, with an invited audience presentation at the Jane Mallet Theatre on Jan. 26.

Adam Brazier, spokesman for Theatre 20, told the Star that “our mandate here is the fostering of new Canadian musicals. We’re doing all the administrative work so the creative team can see that their work gets the best hearing possible… If someone like the Stratford Festival or Mirvish Productions wanted to tackle it, we’d be delighted that we had done our part in helping to get it out there.”

Theatre 20 is an actor-driven collective, similar to Soulpepper Theatre in intent, with the distinct difference that all of its members are from the world of musical theatre and that the organization’s programming will share that direction.

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